Websites/Mozilla.org/Archive/Causes Reboot

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Writing about Mozilla's mission is challenging--the community has had about twelve years to work on it and it hasn't reached 1.0 status yet.

This page is a place think through a reboot of the Causes section to take the parts that work in the current version and recreate that content to help us tell the story of Mozilla's mission better.

Current Pages

Proposal

Short version: Merge the existing Causes main page with the Better Internet page.

Longer version: Both the Causes main page and Better Internet page tell parts of the story, but there is also content that conflicts with each other and confuses things. It also seems like having a separate page hides some of the important information we want to highlight (the Causes section should be more than one page deep, but the key concepts shouldn't be buried).

The main conflict is the lists of characteristics that demonstrate what we mean by a better internet. The list on the Causes main page feels like a grab-bag of different community activities and doesn't feel coherent. The main list on the Better Internet page overlaps a bit with each other, uses some labels we think aren't very clear and doesn't give people any additional information. The list in the introduction text is also different from the list with the illustrations.

The calls to action on these pages are also not great. The original Causes page was not put together with promotional spaces in mind. The Better Internet page has calls to action but they are disjointed from one another and partially hidden.

Update: After further discussions about this, another possibility came up that would involve merging all of the mission messaging in Causes with the current About page. There is a fair amount of duplication between these two sections and an arbitrary split between information that is about Mozilla and information that is about Mozilla's mission.

Draft Text For Stand-Alone Page

Our Causes

Mozilla's mission is to build a better Internet. The Firefox browser and our other projects* are the tools our community uses to promote an open, shared and innovative web.

  • An open Internet allows people to make new and unanticipated things online.
  • A shared Internet enables people to work together to reach common goals.
  • An innovative Internet gives people the opportunity to build onto the web as it is today.

The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to these goals, but the real force behind Mozilla is people around the world taking action to build the web they want. And you can help!

Build the Web You Want (right sidebar?)

  • Rotating Campaign promo
  • Get Involved promo
  • Donate promo

Note: 'Projects' here includes more than just software projects. For instance, I see us linking to featured Drumbeat projects on the Projects page once Drumbeat is live. If the word project feels too narrow for everything the community does, maybe we say something like--and our other activities?

Draft Text For About/Causes Merged Page

Mozilla is a global community of people working together to build a better Internet. Firefox, Drumbeat and our other projects are the tools we use to keep the web open, shared and innovative.

The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to these goals, but individuals creating, using and promoting technology are the real force behind Mozilla.

Also include some of the following:

  • donation promo
  • video?
  • set of visual hub links like mozilla.com/about?
  • rotation of mozilla principles like current causes main page?

Note: The information about open, shared, etc. will go on a new Mission page that will serve as an introduction to the full Manifesto text we're currently linking people directly to.

Note: In this scenario we wouldn't need space to promote campaigns since the home page will be taking over as a rotating promotional area.

Proposed new nav:

  • Our Mission
  • Organizations
  • Grants
  • Roles and Leadership
  • Policies
  • History
  • FAQs

Support is removed here since we can highlight it better elsewhere like on Contact page, directory and maybe home page)

Other Word Lists

For comparison, here are some pages with examples of other ways we've talked about our mission.

  • transparency, participation, creativity and shared control (Our Causes on mozilla.org)
  • transparency, participation, shared control and generativity (A Better Internet on mozilla.org)
  • public, open and accessible (Home page on mozilla.org)

Mockups

Notes/Questions

  • Generativity as a term has been problematic because it is not meaningful on it's own for most people even if it does describe the concept we are trying to get across. Alternatives that are more clear tend to get at only part of the overall concept, but it may be fine to sacrifice some precision for clarity.
  • If we go with the new list above, we'll need some new illustrations. The 'Generativity' illustration is great but probably doesn't work with 'Innovation'. I also continue to think the 'Participation' illustration can be read as needing to ask permission to take part in things which is certainly not what we mean.
  • The donation promo on the Better Internet page feels too large and I'd like to start converging on a more standard (and more pluggable and reusable) format and size.
  • Do we want a way for people to get to past campaigns? If so, we can create a campaigns index that we link to perhaps in the action sidebar as 'More ideas for action' or something. If not, should we archive the old content or just remove and redirect?
  • Do we want to highlight principles from the Manifesto here like we currently do? If so, we could have that rotate through all 10 principles. If not, maybe highlighting parts of the Manifesto would work better on a reworked Manifesto main page.
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